AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 11 



been of the latter service to me, — Emerson and 

 Whitman. Such a spirit as Bryant is confirmatory. 

 I may say the same of Whittier and Longfellow. 

 I owe to these men solace and encouragement, but 

 no new territory. 



Still, the influences that shape one's life are often 

 so subtile and remote, and of such small beginning, 

 that it will not do to be too positive about these 

 matters. At any rate, self-analysis is a sort of back- 

 handed work, and one is lucky if he comes at all 

 near the truth. 



As such a paper must of necessity be egotistical, 

 let me not flinch in any part of my task on that 

 account. 



What little merit my style has is the result of 

 much study and discipline. I have taught myself 

 always to get down to the quick of my mind at 

 once, and not fumble about amid the husks at the 

 surface. Unless one can give the sense of vitality 

 in his pages, no mere verbal brightness or scholarly 

 attainments will save him. In the best writing, 

 every sentence is filled with the writer's living, 

 breathing quality, just as in the perfected honey- 

 comb every cell is filled with honey. But how 

 much empty comb there is even in the best books! 

 I wish to give an account of a bird, or a flower, or 

 of any open-air scene or incident. My whole effort 

 is to see the thing just as it was. I ask myself, 

 u Exactly how did this thing strike my mind ? What 



